Overview

As a revision exercise, get students to design personalised number plates for historical characters they have studied. Accompany each one with a series of quiz questions which can be used to review the course in an engaging way.

To help students review key dates, people, places and relevant quotes, provide students with a list of key people they have studied (historians as well as historical characters). Divide these between the members of the class and give everyone a copy of a template which they can use to design a personalised number plate for each of the characters they have been allocated. This will require them to consider carefully what they will include to help them answer the following five questions:

• Who: Whose initials are shown on this number plate?
• When: What singificant event occurred on the date shown?
• What: What is the significance of the picture that has been chosen?
• Where: What is the significance of the place mentioned under the picture?
• Why: Why has the particular quote been chosen?

Once these have been collected in, they can be used as the basis of a revision quiz: the class can be divided into teams, and each team shares the number plates that they have produced with each other. The first team chooses a number plate produced by one of their members, then challenges the second team to answer the five key questions outlined above in relation to it to obtain a maximum of five points. The second team then does the same for the third team and so on, until the final team poses its questions back to the first team. The quiz could proceed over several rounds.

Taking it further

• To ensure that all students are encouraged to revise the material during the lesson (not just the cards they personally produced), make it clear that any question which is not answered correctly will immediately be ‘bounced back’ to the team which asked it – and that the teacher will nominate a random student within this team to provide the correct answer. Failure to do so will result in one point being deducted from the team. With this new rule made clear, provide all the teams with sufficient time before the quiz starts to discuss their number plates with each other so that the whole team is confident to answer any questions relating to their team’s material.
• The teacher could award a bonus point for the team which provides the best answer to the question “What car do you think would suit this person best? Explain your answer!”.